After Harvey passed away, I wondered if I would ever dream about him. I’m not particularly sentimental, but I thought it would be nice. Or maybe I would feel his presence. I remember that my grandmother hoped for this after my grandfather passed away, and she was always disappointed that it never happened.
About two months after he died, I did indeed have a dream that brought me a lot of peace. In the dream, Harvey was his very ill self, lying on his side on his hospital bed in the nursing home. I leaned over him from behind to kiss his cheek and whispered, “How are you doing today, Harvey?” Still lying quietly, he spoke clearly, without a hint of Alzheimer’s disease in his voice, “I’m doing just fine, Renée.”
Wow! Was it just a dream, or had Harvey really come to tell me this message? I don’t know, and I don’t really care.
I’m pretty logical when it comes to constructs like heaven. We just don’t know what happens when we die. Yes, I was brought up in the Christian faith and heard all the usual stories of heaven—the pearly gates, Peter with the judgement book in hand, ready to tell me if I was to admitted. As a child, I imagined a ledger of all the good things and the bad things that I had done. If the good outweighed the bad, Peter would let me in.
As I grew older, I began to think that this black and white way of viewing the afterlife was too simplistic. It seemed designed to keep unruly children and wayward adults in check. By my early twenties, I had concluded that I would never know for sure, and that it really didn’t matter to my theology. I wasn’t living my life with a goal of obtaining an afterlife. At the same time, I realized that oppressed peoples would absolutely gain solace in a belief in a life after death that did not involve destitution, bigotry, or slavery. Others gain solace from a belief that they will be reunited with departed loved ones. I felt no need to espouse my personal thoughts about heaven out loud when it was so meaningful to others.
God is love, and love is pure, radiant energy. Each of us were created in love, by love and for love. Substitute “God” for the word “love” and the meaning doesn’t change. We are all part of this energy that is love, and that doesn’t stop when we die. I believe that our souls continue to exist as a part of this loving energy—they did before our life on earth, and do so after we die. When I feel love or extend love to others, the embrace of that loving energy is powerful.
All I knew for certain following Harvey’s death was that his suffering was over. The dream, even if was just a thought in my brain, still served to shore me up. To hear that he had been restored to his previous self was beautiful to hear, especially from his lips. My heart soared as I woke up and remembered the dream. I shared it with our daughters, and prayed that they would have a message of their own.
I don’t know why I didn’t realize it myself, but a friend pointed out that Harvey is still physically present in our daughters, as half of their genetic make-up is from their father. One has his nose, the other his eyes. They both have his natural running ability. They both have his quiet disposition and call to a helping career.
And now our oldest daughter has given birth to her first child, my first grandchild. The baby inherited one quarter of her genetic code from the grandfather she will never know, but we will tell her stories of the kind, beautiful, compassionate, strong, intelligent Harvey. And he will live on.